New Tomb Raider Game is Officially in Development For 2018

Square Enix has announced that a new Tomb Raider game is on its way. There’s no word yet on when it will be released or what it will entail. Square Enix claims that the company is taking “a new approach” for promoting the title.

Launching in 1996, the Tomb Raider franchise has become a huge sensation in the gaming community. Over a dozen installments have been released over the last twenty years, helping it to become one of the best-selling video game franchises of all-time. The series was rebooted in 2011 with Tomb Raider, which achieved critical acclaim. A sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, was released in November of 2015. It gained enough critical and commercial success to easily justify a third installment. It was rumored in 2015 that a sequel titled Shadow of the Tomb Raider was in development.

Square Enix posted a message on Twitter to announce that the company is working on a new Tomb Raider game. However, no artwork, title, or plot was mentioned. According to Square Enix, the company has elected to take “a new approach” with Tomb Raider by officially unveiling the game closer to its release date. The message claims that a major event is coming in 2018 to take Lara Croft on a “defining adventure“. You can read the full message below:

Since Square Enix has been careful not to reveal anything about the new game, all fans can do is speculate about what the next installment will bring to the franchise. It’s likely that the game will be the next chapter in Lara’s story, following the conclusion of Rise of the Tomb Raider. It’s also possible that the game may tie in to the new film starring Alicia Vikander. However, this doesn’t seem necessary, considering that the movie is already largely based on the video game reboot. Many aspects from the film, including Lara’s physical appearance, choice of weapons, and the plot borrow directly from the last two games. Even certain action sequences will be translated from the video game onto the big screen.

Fans can expect Square Enix to continue building on the success of Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider by implementing many of the elements that made the last two games so popular with gamers, such as the open-world environment, weather system, and improvised weapons.

It remains to be seen if the new Tomb Raider game will coincide in any way with the release of the movie, which hits theaters March 2018.